Probably Science

Comedian and author Moshe Kasher (@moshekasher) returns to the show to talk with Andy, Jesse and Matt about his upcoming book Subculture Vulture, chronicling his deep involvement in the seemingly disparate worlds of Hasidic Judaism, deaf culture, comedy, sobriety, rave culture and Burning Man, as well as digging into the possible de-extinction of the dodo.

Comedian Kim McVicar (@KimMcVicar) joins Andy, Matt and Jesse to talk about famous hecklers, Kim's dancing background, musicals and their parodies, coin flips not being as 50/50 as you think, neanderthal early birds, Daylight Saving Time talk, holiday penile fractures and the crazy waves hitting the west coast right now.

While the gang take a little holiday break, we thought it was worth revisiting Andy's conversation with AI researcher and UC Berkeley Professor of Computer Science Stuart Russell from wayyyyy back in 2019. Now that we're well into the era of generative artificial intelligence, it's interesting to look back at what experts were saying about AI alignment just a few years ago, when it seemed to many of us like an issue we wouldn't have to tackle directly for a long time to come. As we face down a future where LLMs and other generative models only appear to be getting more capable, it's worth pausing to reflect on what needs to be done to usher in a world that's more utopian than dystopian. Happy holidays!

Comedian Shane Torres (@shanetorres) returns to the show to talk with Matt, Jesse and Andy about his new special The Blue Eyed Mexican, his unique Covid experience, more SPATS chats, finding the lost space tomato, what happens when you take your gun into an MRI scanner, someone else who wasn't as lucky with the MRI, the most extreme rogue wave on record, and the sound that warns a tornado is coming.

Comedian and author Ryan Conner (@rconnercomedy) returns to the show to talk with Matt, Jesse and Andy about his porn doppelganger, the process of researching and writing his new satirical novel The Party, an AI ProbSci ripoff, SpaceX rockets punching holes in the sky, deep brain stimulation to help TBI patients and a tree-dwelling shrimp found in the Cyclops Mountains.

Comedian Dustin Ybarra (@dustin_ybarra) joins Jesse, Andy and Matt to talk about the recent Formula 1 race in Las Vegas, Erdős–Bacon numbers, the first mammal embryos grown in space, space travel's effect on erectile dysfunction, trying to deter orcas with heavy metal, a message laser-beamed from 10 million miles away, the rise of 6G and the ouster and return of OpenAI's Sam Altman after a rumored AGI breakthrough.

Comedian Jenny Zigrino (@jennyzigrino) joins Jesse, Andy and Matt to talk about skunks, the Vegas F1 race, smelling in stereo, the upside of anger in completing tasks, dominant eyes, Iceland volcanos and the ultra-creepy hamster test or sperm penetration.

Comedian Steve Benaquist (@stevebenaquist) joins Andy, Matt and Jesse to talk about Halloween, Unversal Monsters, neck bolts, Frankenstein's Doug, sandbagging, goldbricking, carpetbagging and teetotaling, a radioactive toy from the 1950s, an unfortunate pig heart update, people who can't feel pain, Frozen Dead Guy Days, physics-defying sperm, a wind-powered car that goes faster than the wind, a tiny particle accelerator and Andy's Airbnb.

Comedian Aparna Nancherla (@aparnapkin) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to talk about her new book Unreliable Narrator, the ubiquity of impostor syndrome in Hollywood, childhood memories of carob, a new insanely hot pepper, roosters recognizing themselves in mirrors, a drunk dude fighting his reflection, and AI besting humans at Street Fighter.

Comedian, musician and now author Dave Hill (@mrdavehill) joins Jesse, Andy and Matt to talk about his lifelong love of hockey, his new book The Awesome Game, bowling lane oil patterns, figuring out how cats purr, bespectacled chickens, and the first-ever fine issued for space junk.

Andy's away, but Matt and Jesse are joined by Kevin Kataoka and returning guest Brian Malow to talk about pseudolegal grifts! Why you shouldn't talk to the police! Scientists who've grown a human embryo! Brian May side projects! Hedy Lamarr's inventions! Military subterfuge and ghost armies! And sailing a satellite out of orbit! You can join our Patreon to hear a bonus story about NFL jersey numbers.

Comedian/biomedical engineer Pallavi Gunalan (@PallaviGunalan) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to talk about her path from science to comedy, working on open-source ventilators, the oldest living skydiver, the oldest surfer, growing human kidneys in pigs, the surprising intelligence of jellyfish and a misread of one of Newton's laws.

Andy's back from Burning Man to give the gang an update on how not big of a deal the rain was and to talk about Jesse's love of the band Ghost, middle-age music obsessions, the viral sensation "Sitting" by Brian Jordan Alvarez, debunking a Da Vinci tree rule (and figuring out what, exactly, bunk is), the greatest-ever opening line of a textbook, the risks of eating a single super-hot chip and how much you'd have to pay Jesse to do it.

Comedian, Kimmel writer and now author Jesse Joyce joins us to talk about his new book about the killer of Lincoln's killer! Plus live brain worms! The Indian moon landing! Unimpressive household robots! And who should go to Mars! Click here for a free trial of Scribd and read/listen to Jesse's book.

Comedian, actor and host of The John Fugelsang Podcast and SiriusXM's Tell Me Everything John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) joins Jesse, Andy and Matt to talk about Prince's showstopping Beatles solo, reconciling science and the Bible, Russia crashing a lander into the moon, the steampunk LK lunar module, warnings of the submersible implosion, the 1970s SoCal Hurricane Kathleen, the reason it takes a while for a tan to show up and a view of Hurricane Hilary from the ISS.

Comedian DeAnne Smith (@DeAnne_Smith) joins Matt, Andy and Jesse to talk about DeAnne's new special Chiweenie in a Tank Top, getting Canadian citizenship, advances in pig-human transplantation, the possibility of regrowing human teeth, the game Pizza Party and the Radiolab episode about Alpha Gal.

Comedian Jamel Johnson (@NonProfitComic), host of too many podcasts to count, joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to mourn Paul Reubens, discuss Amazing Larry and his deleted scene, the Cabazon dinosaurs, Sonic & Knuckles, Michael Jackson's Sonic connection, how to help striking film and TV workers, a tick bite that can cause a meat allergy, leprosy on the rise in Florida, Mars spinning (slightly) faster, crushing a design contest for kids and connecting old mice to young mice.

American Gladiator Danny Lee "Nitro" Clark joins Andy, Jesse and Matt to talk about the hit Netflix documentary Muscles & Mayhem, how his "raw meat" tryout ad-lib landed him the role of a lifetime, the analogies between management's treatment of the Gladiators and the current WGA/SAG strikes, the odd experience of seeing yourself as an action figure, nostalgia for the monoculture, Nitro's romance with Ellen Degeneres, the role genes play in determining your endurance ability, introducing height classes into basketball, and Tony Vainuku's other Netflix doc about Manti Te'o.

Comedian/writer/director Bethany Dwyer (@BethanyDwyer) returns to the show to talk with Matt, Jesse and Andy about her horror film Grandpa, self-repairing metal, action movie one-liners, why dolphins and orcas won't be returning to land, the resurrection of 46,000-year-old nematodes and the list of human evolution fossils.

Brooks Wheelan (@brookswheelan) returns to the podcast to celebrate 500 episodes of Probably Science and talk about Probarbenheimer, the demise of Summer Country, a new venomous snake, a solar telescope array that cost half as much as White Chicks, unlocking car doors with tennis balls and creating weather forecasts with AI.

Comedian Karl Hess (@karlhess) of the podcast Yelling About Pâté and the live show Amuse Bouche returns to the show to talk with Jesse, Matt and Andy about urban legends, ancient Chinese secrets, a possible bit of alien technology that crashed into the ocean, a Cuban lung cancer treatment, Kyle Kinane getting his van stuck in Joshua Tree, the poop-filled beaches of Texas, an extremely shiny exoplanet, and the handful of companies that control the world's beer.

Dan Schreiber of the podcasts No Such Thing as a Fish and The Cryptid Factor, as well as the new book The Theory of Everything Else, joins Matt and Jesse to talk about Nobelitis, using insects to turn beer waste into beef, an ancient slasher dolphin with weird teeth, using shopping cart sensors to identify stroke risk and Keith Alberstadt's bat attack.

On a very special guest-less episode, Matt, Jesse and Andy talk about the fate of the OceanGate Titan, extreme undersea pressure, the curse of the Titanic, whether the Kursk could have been saved, the slightly dubious age-defying claims of a man who lived underwater for several months, the approval of lab-grown meat, Jesse and Andy's latest video game forays, what kangaroos did before they hopped, the problematic platform of RFK Jr. and Matt and Andy's wallaby encounter.

Comedian John Conroy (@ConroyFTW) joins Jesse, Andy and Matt to talk about Grimace's birthday, driving Ronald McDonald around, finding the building blocks of life on Enceladus, federal capital offenses, frog pants, how many people haven't tried ChatGPT and nanotattoos that don't need batteries or wires.

Comedian Anna Valenzuela (@annavisfunny) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to talk about her myriad jobs including trolley operator and karate instructor, China's space monkey sex plans, why race car drivers blink at the same point on the track and why Michael Caine never blinks at all.

Comedian and comic book author Izzy Salhani (@luckysalhani) joins Jesse, Matt and Andy to talk about bear-baiting, fighting a bunch of kids, a Renaissance fair accident, clay quality, octopus-inpired camouflage ink, Richard Branson's rocket plane taking to the skies again, orcas learning to attack boats and orca fads.

Comedian Liz Miele (@lizmiele) returns to the show to talk about her tour documentary Jet-Lagged, growing up in a veterinarian household, Australian wildlife adventures, a koala chlamydia vaccine, aesthetic scrotal preferences, an Onion classic, Liz's book Why Cats Are Assholes, gymnastics limitations and exceeding astrophysics limitations.

Neuroscientist and clinical psychologist Dr. Heather Berlin (@heather_berlin) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to talk about hosting the upcoming PBS series Your Brain, the hard problem of consciousness, evolutionary mismatches, panic attack strategies, flow state performance, debating Deepak Chopra about god, the Stanford marshmallow experiment, impulse control, the downside of getting a hangry judge, debunking brain myths, creating consciousness in different substrates, the thermal grill experiment and the fact that we're all going to die.

Comedian and host of the podcasts High and Mighty and ActionBoyz Jon Gabrus (@Gabrus) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to talk about his hilarious show 101 Places to Party Before You Die, the WGA strike, whether AI can write a 30 Rock scene, the shrinking middle class in entertainment, buffet memories, the benefits of an all-female Mars mission team, curing parrot loneliness with video calls, the insane number of pet birds in the US and advice for a precocious young listener.

Longtime Conan writer and co-creator of Eagleheart Andrew Weinberg joins Andy, Jesse and Matt to talk about his ridiculously funny new show Jury Duty, which follows the workings of a jury trial through the eyes of Ronald Gladden, a juror who is unaware the entire case is fake, the insane hoops they had to jump through to bring the show to life, the truth about weed and creativity, and the unsurprising link between arousal and a desire to have sex with a robot.

Comedian Andy Hendrickson (@andyhendrickson) joins Jesse, Matt and Andy to talk about magic tricks that only work on monkeys with opposable thumbs, how mirrors know where eggs are, a math formula for achieving orgasm, how quickly you can create false memories and Andy's neighbor Tony's commentary track on Birdemic 3.

Comedian Nate Craig (@hypeman) returns to the podcast to talk about a deadly fungal infection, terrible maps, building cities on shaky ground, the history of plate tectonics, nanoplastics interfering with chicken embryos and a 3D-printed cake.

Comedian Noman Hosni (@NomanHosni) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to talk about Tunisia, bad fan art, hair transplants, a bad embryo swap, Paris' City of Science and Industry, a blood test for anxiety, storing carbon dioxide in the ocean as baking soda, how much lift the space shuttle lander can generate and mapping the brain of a fruit fly.

Host of Daily Tech News Show Sarah Lane (@sarahlane) joins Jesse, Matt and Andy to talk about ballerina doppelgangers, Tom Cruise stunts, Cocaine Bear, accidentally ending up on the air, bumblebees learning to solve puzzles by watching their friends, talkin' transoms, more medical tourism, Meta's VR play and DuckDuckGo's new AI-assisted search.

New York Times technology columnist and host of the Hard Fork podcast Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) joins Andy, Jesse and Matt to talk about his infamous, amorous encounter with Bing Chat/Sydney, Sydney's response to his story, getting backhanded compliments from John Oliver, how ChatGPT was dismissed by its own creators, generative AI and the future of deepfakes, AI's capability overhang, explaining LLMs' weirdness with the Waluigi effect, artists' lawsuits over training AI on their creations, whether we care how art is made, which jobs could soon be on the chopping block and Futureproof, Kevin's handbook for the weird times ahead.

Comedian and writer Amanda Brooke Perrin (@brookeperrin) joins Matt, Andy and Jesse to discuss haboobs, a Tony update, a 2200-year-old flush toilet found in China, DIY Poo-Pourri, how soft food gave us the F-word, Andy's consonant invention, ChatGPT developing a theory of mind, and dolphin handjobs.

Comedian Erica Spera (@Spericaa) joins Andy, Jesse and Matt to talk about almost going into dentistry, prehistoric teeth, Andy's Mexican dental tourism, what we're supposed to call mummies now, monster cereals, AI Seinfeld's heel turn, Roko's basilisk, mummy chemicals, ancient stone tools and more stone tools and Soylent.

Comedian/filmmaker Jo Rou (@awkwardlyjazzy) joins Jesse, Matt and Andy to discuss Santana's answer to Beats by Dre, the mystery of a gibbon immaculate conception solved, the tiny radioactive capsule that went missing in the outback, detecting cancer with customer loyalty cards, airbrushing Boris Johnson, Jesse's bad business ideas, the Snickers dick vein, World War I talk, the awful new show Power Slap and Jo's sitcom I Adore Dolores.

Clinical psychologist and misophonia researcher Dr. Jane Gregory (@drjanegregory) and comedian Steve Hall (@astevehall) return to the show to talk with Matt, Jesse and Andy about Jane's work studying misophonia, what to do if your spouse's breathing drives you insane, and what's on the horizon for treating the condition. Trigger non-warning: This episode contains NO examples of misophonia-triggering sounds. That we know of.

Comedian, goalkeeper and coach Michael Magid (@michaelmagid) joins Andy, Matt and Jesse to discuss Michael's football (soccer) podcast Inside the 18, his new social network The Union, quitting your gym with the help of AI, a Tesla that caused a pileup, a Tesla that thwarted a triple murder-suicide, fires in electric vs. gas cars, a breakthrough in reversing aging in mice, ripped old guys, Matt Braunger's Weight Smashers sketch, lab-grown retinal eye cells to treat blindness and Matt and Andy's new favorite podcast If Books Could Kill.

Comedian turned author Christina Martin (@christinamartin) joins Jesse, Matt and Andy to talk about atmospheric rivers, shared names, Christina's book Ashes to Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer, putting on funerals for unidentified decedents, the return of a comet after 50,000 years, Newton's madness, Heaven's Gate sneaker collection, reversing erectile dysfunction in pigs and a real horror show of a pig.

Comedian Sean Patton (@mrseanpatton) returns to the podcast to talk with Andy, Jesse and Matt about his new special Number One, comedian affectations, paradox-free time travel, alternate Hitler histories, water pipe robots to deal with leaks and how the sun put water on the moon.

Comedian Katrina Davis (@katrinasivad) joins Jesse, Matt and Andy to discuss gene-edited hens, baby dinosaurs running on the beach, snake clitorises and the correlation between vaccination status and car crashes.

Comedian David Nihill (@davidnihill) joins Jesse, Andy and Matt to discuss getting kicked out of science class, the potential impact of the release of OpenAI's mind-blowing ChatGPT, big news on the nuclear fusion front, Artemis 1 splashing down, Steve Aoki's upcoming trip to the moon, David Guetta's greatest moment and self-medicating great bustards.

Comedian Mike Bridenstine (@brido) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to talk about his podcast Hunk, a promising new HIV vaccine, the decline of key changes in popular music, the tyranny of the I V vi IV chord progression, how bin chickens learned to wash cane toads, a blast of light from a black hole, spurious correlations, how long we've known how far away the moon is, Andy's favorite dumb shirt IG account and the Nazi brothers who started competing shoe brands.

Comedian Billy Wayne Davis (@BillyWayneDavis) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to talk about his upcoming special TESTIFY (recorded at the International Church of Cannabis), learning how to grow weed, the woman who only eats cheesy potatoes, seismic waves on the surface of Mars, the recent northern California fireballs, very low frequency sound that makes you dance without knowing it, bodies moving after death and The Last Electric Knight.

Journalist-turned-podcaster Joel Stein (@thejoelstein) joins Andy, Jesse and Matt to talk about his excellent new show Story of the Week, Elon charging for Twitter, out-of-touch billionaires, Joel's book In Defense of Elitism, why you shouldn't pick your nose, the Madagascan primate that eats its boogers, Tribble runs, smelly time travel, writing for Time magazine, meeting falconers, the problem with Halloween ghost costumes and Matt's upcoming tour with Sarah Millican.

Record producer, audio engineer and professor Dr. Susan Rogers' remarkable recording career included working as a staff engineer for Prince in his Purple Rain heyday, not to mention projects with David Byrne, Barenaked Ladies and Crosby, Stills & Nash. After two decades in the business, she shifted her focus to the science of music cognition, and she brings her extensive knowledge of all things audio to the new book This Is What It Sounds Like: What The Music You Love Says About You, digging into concepts including beat deafness, authenticity, musical visualization, Prince's insane charisma, turning down Lou Reed, music and identity, the outsider magic of The Shaggs and Snowball the dancing cockatoo.

Comedian Charles Greaves (@Greaves_Charles) joins Matt, Jesse and Andy to discuss Jam In The Van, Nashville Armored Combat, chess boxing, spinlaunching a payload to 30,000 feet, how spinlaunching works, trying to solve the mystery of squirting, microwaving fish to make sustainable LEDs, and the dog Andy found on the road in Joshua Tree.

Comedian/magician Harrison Greenbaum (@harrisoncomedy) joins Andy, Jesse and Matt to talk about doing comedy in Cirque du Soleil, the overlap between psychology, comedy and magic, men making riskier bets after a positive foretune-telling, dogs sniffing out stress in humans, successfully crashing DART into an asteroid and the heyday of vector graphics in the arcade.